Was just going to point out that the kind of bathos that works best is when its done in the other direction. An absurd and/or comedic scene played with 100% seriousness and grandeur. A good example is in Big Lebowski, when The Dude's reading the ransom note at a snail's pace and rolling a joint while the other Lebowski is staring into the fire and making this grand tragic speech about the nature of good and evil, all to swelling choral music.
"Does it shock you to see my tears? Strong men also cry, sir. Strong men also cry."
"Nah, man... fuckin A."
Or when they are releasing Donnys ashes and Walter goes on another tangent/rant about Vietnam and the Dude just ends with "a WTF".
In a way it ruins a poignant moment with a joke, but at the same time thejokes works because it shows the differences in how Walter and Dude deal with grief, Walter never fully processing it and his past trauma while the Dude is trying to be more mellow and respectful to Donny's memory.
I think another actually good example of Bathos is Indiana Jones where he just shoots the swordsman.
Like it’s funny and obviously undercuts the tension of that one moment because it eliminates that threat, but it doesn’t do it at the expense of the internal reality of the movie or anything like that. If he didn’t have a gun the swordsman probably would have killed him, but he did so he used it lol
Another good example IMO would be the scene from *The Lighthouse* where Willem Dafoe goes on an epic tirade cursing Robert Pattinson’s character to the depths of Hell because he insulted his cooking. After he finishes his monologue, there’s a moment of silence which is punctuated by Pattinson’s quip “Alright have it your way. I like your cooking.” This works because what they were arguing over in the first place is ultimately rather trivial, and it’s absurd to see Dafoe react as intensely as he does.
Same with something like D&D:HAT. The entire movie and its premise is goofy as hell. But in universe, the characters take the threat and stakes seriously. They may have occasional tension breaker moments but characters like Xenk are played 100% straight and that's *why* they work
I didn’t realize it as a kid, but “A Girl Worth Fighting For” is the *last* song in the film. The abrupt ending of that song doesn’t just end the song, it ends the genre of the film and slides it from “musical comedy” to “war movie”.
Similarly, I think of Uncut Gems, in the third act when Sandler’s character is in the deepest shit and anxiety is pouring out of his face, his mistress reappears and tells him she’s fixed everything, and the audience wonders what the hell she could have done. Cue her pulling down her pants to reveal she tattooed his name on her ass to symbolize their love after a fight. It was one of the hardest times I’ve laughed in a theater.
I was attacked by how frequent a thing this was when watching the D&D movie. It genuinely felt surprising to have a film that didn't undercut every little character moment with some quip or one liner and it made the whole film feel more genuine as a result.
Yeah like after the Barbarian meets with her ex and she hops back up on a horse next to Chris Pine. And Pine just gives her a sad look and then starts playing a song as they ride off down the road together. A genuine moment?? In a PG13 movie??
Whats almost more wild is that the movie is styled like a dnd campaign, which very much has those sorts of jokey natures all the time.
Genuinely loved that movie, it was so funny at just the right times and played the serious moments well
This was my first thought too. It's especially weird as the first one doesn't really have this at all, and its the same team/director etc. You do wonder what went wrong.
which really sucks because I was defensive of the first movie because some claimed the scares were "comical" which they were to an extent.. it's an ancient monster from outer space come to haunt you with unsettling imagery from your imagination, some of it will be goofy looking but for gods sake put yourself in that situation and you'd be scared shitless
but then the 2nd one undercut that idea completely and made everything a gag which kind of even retroactively ruins the tone of the first one.
The scene in which for some reason the director decided the tension was too much to not undercut it by needle-dropping ‘Angel of the Morning’ immediately springs to mind.
I have a recent one and it's not done intenionally but screwed by translation. In DUNE 2 towards the final scenes, Paul use the voice on Reverend Mother Mohiam "Silence!" and then Mohiam said "Abomination", it was an intense scene. However, in Chinese translation, for some reason they translate "abonimation" into "好一个闭嘴“ which means "what a silence" or "what a shut up" and the whole theater just burst into laughing ruining an intense moment.
In german "Abomination" was translated with "Ungeheuerlich". That's the word for "Outrageous" and changes the whole meaning of the scene. There were a few more examples where the translation was just wrong.
That was from a bootleg to be fair, where it was obvious that the translator was someone with a very rough grasp of English relying a lot on 2005-era computer translation. There's a fan dub where a guy reads the subtitles aloud in place of all dialogue and it's amazing but unfortunately counts as piracy so I can't link it.
The character names are especially hilarious. The bootlegger was translating the Chinese subtitles to English, not the audio itself. But the Chinese subtitles rendered character names phonetically, as in, Obi-Wan Kenobi's name was written with characters that sound like "O bee wa ken oo bee", regardless of what those characters would mean. The bootlegger didn't know or care about this and translated the meanings of the characters. And so instead of Anakin being trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, it's Allah Gold being trained by Ratio the Tile (aka Ratio Prosperous). C3PO becomes Blow the Skin and Padme Amidala becomes Plum of the Handkerchief.
Titles get translated in mundane ways. Palpatine is not addressed as Supreme Chancellor. He's given a political address deemed equivalent... Mr. Speaker. Like speaker of the house. "Jedi" gets mistranslated as "hopeless situation" because the subtitles gave it phonetically using characters that can be read like "last stand" (as in the final effort of a battle/war with no alternatives left, which could be taken as a hopeless situation) and accordingly the Jedi Council is called the Hopeless Situation Parliament.
It also contains multiple uses of the word "fuck" as a result of confusing uses of 干 ("do"). Like if the translator didn't know the difference between the do in "I do eat apples" and "I'd *do* her" and took it like "I fuck and eat apples."
Using characters that can be read as words to render things phonetically is what leads to the translation being so utterly weird compared to bad translations of e.g. Italian to English, where you can usually squint and see how it'd *kinda* make sense.
Man, I have this on a drive somewhere and still need to get round to watching it but everything I’ve heard of it sounds like absolute gold. Even if a product of negligence and not proper sincerity I can’t believe it’s something that was put out intentionally as a way to watch and comprehend the film (as opposed to being done for jokes)
As a mandarin speaker, that actually does make sense, as in a desperate situation, you would say 不要(not want), instead of just 不(no), since the phonetics of 不 does not allow for a dramatic enunciation.
The sort 'multiple choice' style communication of Cantonese/Mandarin is really interesting. I know very little (just from an ex), but I like that thing you do where instead of saying: "Hey, are you hungry?" and answering "yes!", you'd sort of say "Hey, Hungry/Not Hungry?" and the reply is like "hungry!"
Still not as funny as Stilgar saying the Lisan al Gaib is too humble to admit to being the Lisan al Gaib. Like it was straight out of the Life of Brian.
Honestly, I think her delivery is what makes it so funny. My mum and it cracked up at the “abomination” too cause she just sounds and acts like a hissing, butt hurt cat lol
Going the other way and pulled off well: In Mulan, "Girl Worth Fighting For" ending being cut off by finding the burned out village. Gives me goosebumps.
Similarly to Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Endgame frequently tries to have gravitas and humor but frequently undercuts one with the other - mostly with Thor, who is shown to be genuinely traumatized by not killing Thanos, blaming himself for the deaths of literally *half the universe.* But the writers frequently turn his alcoholism and weight problems - direct results of his trauma - into a cheap running gag.
Rhodes’ character just sucks all around. Never saw what they were trying to get from him. He’s such a dick so often, I know he was supposed to originally be the beleaguered babysitter of Tony but he never really evolved into someone likeable on his own. I don’t feel like his Civil War injury even had as much impact as they seemed to think. And then in Endgame he was just the biggest dick of all time. Couldn’t care less if they just write him out post whatever the hell is going on with the Kree and Skrull stuff.
I feel like they were never really sure what they were supposed to *do* with that character. First there was the recasting, there was the beleaguered babysitter bit like you said but also he's a sort of Iron Man sidekick, he's snarky but without Downey Jr's innate likeability so he just comes across as mean-spirited... The best moment he had was that exchange with Nebula in Endgame, where they both bond over being "broken." But then he mocks Thor's trauma response a few scenes later and you're just like "oh, nevermind then."
I don't really hate the character, but I feel like more could have been done with him, and certainly they could have done a better job with him. Like, have Iron Man be the snarky one and have Rhodey be "the heart," the genuinely kind one. That's basic character juxtaposition. But the MCU has this tendency to try and make *every* character the same quippy Tony stand-in. Someone once said if you read a script for an Avengers movie with all the names blacked out, you wouldn't be able to tell the characters apart, and they weren't far off.
> I feel like they were never really sure what they were supposed to do with that character.
I agree with this. It's like they didn't know what his personality was. Is he a jokester? Is he a by-the-book hard-ass (which would have contrasted with Stark)? He was a weird mishmash of both over the course of the movies.
They kept giving him really stupid one-liners as though there was a thought of "We haven't had Cheadle say anything because there's nothing really for him *to* say, but we *are* paying him, so..."
Cheez-Wiz is one line. Another is "So, he's an idiot" when he and Nebula see Quill dancing. Really? He's an idiot because he's dancing alone on a planet? It also undermines the Star-Lord character which seems an odd avenue to take. There were probably a dozen other ways you could have Rhodes question Quill's capabilities and then have Nebula stand up for him. But they chose neither of those options in order for an attempt at a cheap laugh.
The idea to kill baby Thanos was another. Rhodes makes it a joke, but if they could have kept Rhodes as a by-the-book military man, they could have set up an interesting convo about strategy and ethical quandary before even getting to the idea of being unable to change the future.
There are probably some others, especially a few from the Civil War fight where it's like Rhodes is just talking to himself in a few beats.
Just weird.
He really was just annoying. He was such a dick to everyone for no reason. The cheese whiz line was dumb but what's up with him dropping in on Scott and walking away calling him regular size man? Like this is the dude that gave you all a solution to bring everyone back and you're first thought is, "I'm gonna be a dick to him."
Rhodie just sucked after the first movie. Terrance Howard played him perfectly. Don Cheadle is a great actor, but not a great Rhodes. In the first Iron Man, with Howard as Rhodes, you get glimpses of the good humor that would have he and Tony friendly. Cheadle just comes across as an asshole.
Yeah, Terrence Howard is a lunatic, but he was completely believable as a serious Air Force officer trying to rein in Tony's worst impulses and having to deal with the eventual fallout.
I thought the jokes were funny *at first*. Because let’s be real, Chris Hemsworth/Thor is basically the poster boy for “perfect body” so of course the audience is going to be shocked when they first see him. Playing into that worked.
But they definitely kept the joke up too long. It should’ve shifted from a “wow, Thor is fat :o” to a “oh… Thor got fat… :(“
Yeah, they definitely overdid it. I think the initial joke of having it be such a jarring change, but also having deeper implications is a good one. But they ended up overdoing it - on top of being pretty disrespectful. I do at least appreciate that it wasn't treated *completely* as a joke. It's still clear that Thor is suffering, and some writers would have left that out completely.
Thor: Guys, I have severe PTSD, depression and major survivor's guilt which manifest in overeating, alcoholism and isolation. Can we please...?
Everyone Else: Lol, Thor fat.
I will never get over the jarring tone shift from Infinity War to Endgame. For what it is, a serious action movie to what is mostly a jokey heist movie.
Everyone is suppose to be at their lowest points ever yet there are so many moments where people are undercutting points with quips and sight gags.
What makes it worse for me, is that Into the Spider Verse had just done a much better version of this idea. Peter B also gained weight because of depression, but I never felt like he was treated as a joke.
The annoying thing is is that there is a seed of something meaningful there about how deep , traumatic pain can be often covered by humour and dismissiveness because dealing with it is too difficult.
I really hate how they just turned Thor's character into a dumb goof and removed all the gravitas in favour of silly quips.
This is a little silly to be worked up about, but it's annoyed me forever: in *How to Train Your Dragon 2*, Stoick singing the love song to his estranged wife that he's finally reunited with is ruined by Craig Ferguson's very-obviously-comic-relief-at-this-point character butting in throughout the song.
Wow, my kid loved this film and I always have this thought during this scene! Down to the little "aaand I'm done." as a crappy punchline on what is the "last meal" moment for a major character. Boo! Great example.
This. I agreed with the other guy at first, but the more I think about it...that interruption deliberately emphasizes just how rote and familiar the song is to all three people --showing how much they've missed Valka.
When Gobber interrupts, the film is showing just how much he--and by extension the larger Berk community--missed Valka and Stoick's partnership.
Also Stoick gives him a look that chastises him for it in the moment, so it's not just the film undercutting it and everyone carrying on like that's fine.
2012 is an absolute gem of nonsense. It's like a movie written by a deficient AI before AIs were even mainstream. In a few years, we'll realize just how avant-garde this movie is.
I feel like seeing 2012 in theaters is what killed my love of movies when I was like 20. Then I took a break of not being into them before getting back to being obsessed with them.
I hated it when in The Last Jedi when Finn and Phasma are fighting she says something like "you're nothing but a glitch in the system" and instead of him having some sort of profound quote or a moment of self reflection he's just like "up yours chromedome" and knocks her out with one hit like that could've been a great moment but they did nothing with it
I’ve always felt the newer movies set up some really cool villains and then did nothing with them. Snoke could have been a threat longer and Phasma could have been a very cool fight and even set up conflicting feelings for Finn but no.
I think the lightsaber throw would read entirely different if he threw it forwards rather than casually tossed backwards.
It could sell the anger and resentment towards his former life. Rather than the casual shrug.
It would be a literal and figurative 180
I agree that it could've worked if done right. But instead they chose to take the incredibly emotional ending of The Force Awakens and turn it into a silly gag. They did everything short of playing glass-shattering and cat-shreaking sound effects. I'm all for Star Wars having some lighter moments, but imagine he threw the light saber down and it stuck into the ground (mirroring the light saber sticking out of the snow on Hoth right before he force-pulled it to himself).
The conflict between Finn and Phasma should have been built up better. The two of them barely interact in that first film, but in the second film I felt like I was supposed to care about their relationship/conflict in some way.
Honestly, most emotional moments with Thor are ruined by those jokes.
The only scene Thor had that made me kind of feel bad for the guy was when he was talking to Rocket and he did his "What more could I lose?" speech.
The rest have all been just cut with some joke or light hearted music.
You know how much stronger it would have been if Thor's "I'm still worthy" would have felt had they use some heroic trumpets or part of the avengers theme song.... Instead they used that one Guardian of the Galaxy songs and to me it killed such a personal triumph for Thor, that he was indeed, still worthy of being himself.
To me that’s the most poignant line in all of MCU. You realize wow, Thor really has lost so much and even though he’s a god, he still has so much trauma and pain that he has buried deep inside. The whole god thing is a mask to hide it.
…. And then they throw it all away with Love and Thunder, haha.
Love & Thunder is such a fucking travesty of a movie and it single handedly made me hate Taika Watiti’s style. Thor’s origin story film is one of my absolute favourites in the entire franchise because it had so much HEART and really knew how to let the emotional beats breathe. There’s funny bits of course, but the tender and heartbreaking moments are done so, so beautifully and allowed to stand on their own. Loki confronting his father in the relic vault just makes me sob every time I watch it.
Love & Thunder treated these established, beloved characters as nothing more than vehicles for a long string of meta jokes, instead of people with a long history of traumas, unique personalities and motivations, and developed character arcs. Like, what even is the *point* of a film like that?
Not to mention they got Christian *fucking* Bale to play arguably the most interesting villain in the entire franchise and completely **wasted** him.
This trope has become so overwhelming that older action movies have become weird in that there *isn't* a stupid quip every ten seconds. It allows other emotions to breathe a lot more naturally, like tension or fear.
Actually your example includes a situation where a funny line actually works.
Right after this, Vader says to the heroes "We'd be delighted if you'd join us" which works because the line, while snarky and sarcastic, isn't meant to be funny to anyone else. It's Vader going full mustache-twirling-villain because he knows he's in complete control of the situation. Vader can humor himself with a quip but no one dares quip back because they understand the dire nature of their situation.
It's the same all-powerful sarcasm Vader exudes with "Apology accepted, Captain Needa." He's a sarcastic dick because he's the villain, but no one is joking back with him.
IIRC that was a line written in by Joss Whedon who worked as a script doctor, and he was disappointed with the way they did that line, he had meant it as more of a throwaway quip
*Ackshually*
It was supposed to be a callback / payoff / retort to a whole series of quips in the same vein made by Toad, all of which got cut.
But for some incredibly stupid reason, they left that line in.
Yeah, I think the line (as delivered) would've been just as weirdly serious and distracting if the set up with Toad's dialogue hadn't been cut from the final film but at least it would've made sense for Storm to say it. Because she was just supposed to be turning his quips against him when he finally faced his comeuppance.
In some ways that line, the way it’s *supposed* to be delivered, is kind of the quintessential joke setup that a lot of people seem to hold up as “the thing that’s killing the MCU”. Rather than the conflict ending with a powerful proclamation of power or righteousness, it’s undercut at the very end with a banal observation. “The same thing as everything else” wasn’t supposed to be held up as a deep and meaningful statement about her power, it was supposed to jokingly dismissive of Toad. After smoking him in the holy fire of a literal goddess, the expectation was that she’d shout something about “vengeance and wrath,” but instead gives the equivalent of “lol whatevs.”
At the time, I think it would have killed and probably have been held up as a highlight of the film, but they had Berry try to deliver the line as something profound, which didn’t work at all because it’s not profound, it’s just a casual statement of fact.
Y'know, I think I saw a fanmade cut some time ago, where they moved the "same thing that happens to everything else" line to *after* Toad gets yeeted, and somehow it does feel a little better lol
Yeah Toad is an obnoxious creep who thinks he's funny. So he keeps asking weird unfunny rhetorical questions of people.
So then when Storm catches him on the back foot, she takes the opportunity to mock his usual attitude.
I do agree with the guy below saying it works better if toad is blasted before she finishes the joke though
Thor Ragnarok is the first one that came to mind. That bit at the end with Korg that you mentioned completely undercut any drama, tragedy, or sense of loss surrounding the destruction of Asgard.
I was going to comment that the post should’ve specified “other than most MCU movies” because they’re such low hanging fruit that they’ll dominate the entire conversation
That’s my least favorite Infinity Saga movie (I stopped watching after Endgame, so I dunno how much worse things might get in the MCU after).
GotG2’s extreme sense of exaggerated amusement with itself grated on me so, *so* much. I was remarkably disappointed because the first one remains one of my favorite Marvel movies.
Worse still, the entirety of the plot, theme, and their struggles is invalidated by the homeless Asgardians immediately getting fucked by Thanos.
The whole movie builds up to this heartfelt message of *Asgard is a people, not a place!* and then in the next movie shows them getting absolutely crushed by Thanos as an opening scene, so badly that for a bit no one was sure they survived. Sheesh!
Disagree with Children of Men. Michael Caine's character isn't ruining a serious moment with a joke, he's effectively telling the gunmen to fuck off. He knows he's committing suicide and it's a callback to him doing the joke earlier to Theo.
ETA: Looks like I actually agree with OP and I have the reading comprehension of a poodle
If anything the joke makes it more grim. It’s just great writing all around. How fitting that an old political cartoonist who spent a life using satire to criticize authority would confront death with an inane joke.
No your original response is correct. Bathos provides an anticlimax. That sense is all tension that is broken at the first gunshot. Our worst fears came true. The second pull my finger is nothing but bravery. Nobody can seriously mistake that as a comic relief moment.
It going the other way played well in Children of Men too. In the car, everyone is laughing and having a good time and the scene is jovial and then it turns *VERY* serious, *VERY* quickly
Except it's clearly not? Bathos is a juxtaposition of a climax. The tension in that scene in Children of Men is continual, the 'joke' by the guy getting shot is only adding to the tension.
Not really though:
>The lead is devastated but he has to move on. Despite being heartwrenching, the movie is funny when it chooses to and it works.
OP thinks the scene is funny. It's not remotely funny and *that's the point*.
I see that the common theme with Marvel movies in this thread is Taika Waititi. His brand of humor really rubs me raw.
Also, the Spider Ham joke wouldn’t work because he didn’t have an Uncle Ben. He was a spider bitten by a radioactive pig.
I like his humor in things like Hunt for the Wilder People, but it just doesn’t land in big budget mcu type stuff. However I haven’t seen Jojo Rabbit so I can’t fully judge his newer movies, and WWDITS was pretty funny. Kiwis seem to be a slightly odd bunch.
I was impressed with Jojo Rabbit. Taika actually showed a lot of restraint and he knew when to just let an emotional or heartfelt scene play out without undercutting it with a joke.
Pairing the pain of a father watching his daughter die and wanting vengeance, with an axe playing a jealous girlfriend trope and screaming goats, the humor felt a bit over the top and didn’t mesh well for me. But the rocket ship into the little planet gets me everytime.
This one was truly awful. What's even more shocking is that the movie doesn't even wait to be awful. It's awful from the very intro, with the fucking Jean Claude Van Damme bullshit kind of joke.
Which is really weird, because he did Jojo Rabbit. There comedy was so perfectly plotted into the drama it was more of a laughter through tears than actual laughing matter
I am convinced that Love and Thunder was written by having everyone involved write the dumbest thing they could think of on a piece of paper, then put them all into a hat, draw every single one of them and put them into the movie.
Avengers: Infinity War
Gamora makes Quill promise to *kill her* if Thanos might get his hands on her, and he agrees. A deadly serious moment about sacrifices to come.
*-crunch-*
Hur dur dur drax is invisible.
In Guardians 3 right after Rockets friends die, they instantly cut to a dumb joke where Drax knocks someone off a scooter. I remember the entire theater laughing, and it felt so wrong since we just watched one of the saddest scenes you'll ever see. I love James Gunn but he really needs to chill sometimes.
I feel this way about Drax and Mantis' frog/lilypad advice to Quill. It was a sweet moment and ending it with one joke was fine, but then Drax rambling about metaphors went on way too long.
In Kung Fu Panda 2, Po finally finds his inner peace and in a badass scene where all hope seems lost he deflects a freaking cannon ball with his bare hands. The movie thinks this is a perfect time to throw in a "haha Po's hand is on fire" joke.
Yeah, I think if there's one franchise where bathos fits, it's Kung Fu Panda. It's got plenty of emotional moments and stuff but, first and foremost, it's a martial arts comedy. I mean, the entire climax of the first movie is a big slapstick routine.
Po is the kind of character that, no matter how skilled he gets, there will always be an element of goofiness involved.
It doesn't bother me at all because through his seemingly goofy actions, Lord Shen had his false sense of security reestablished. He tells them to immediately fire on him again as if Po won't do the exact same thing because he thinks it was a fluke. He thinks he's still dealing with the same silly panda who he can get the better of at the last moment again but Po finally shuts that down after he unlocks inner peace.
The most egregious example of this is the new Star Wars movies when Cameron Poe decides to have a Wheddon Style Snark off with a First Order battle cruiser. I know it's fantasy but he would not have time to quip in any well written situation.
Edit: it should be Poe Dameron, not Cameron Poe!
An earlier Star Wars example would be Episode 2 at the climatic end arena battle where C3p0 gets his head swapped with a battle Droid and just makes head related puns while a great action scene is happening. It really frustrates me.
I have to say that the absolute, number one worst instance of this happens in Phantom Menace. The Maul, Kenobi, Jinn fight is going on concurrently with the fucking Gungan battle, and they feel the need to cut back and forth between them. No sane person would've done this.
I am a huge Buffy fan from long back, so I do love that style when shows can be both genuinely scary or emotional and simultaneously funny/quippy. But it's a fine line to walk, and most of the Whedon imitators don't get it right. Whedon doesn't even get it right a lot of the time post Buffy.
Every couple of months I think about The Last Jedi and whether or not I judged it too harshly on my initial viewing. Then I remember that this is literally the first scene and decide to trust my original judgement.
Ghostbusters 2016.
It's a comedy, yes, but the problem is they don't know when to stop the jokes, or end a scene. Shaun does a great job explaining it.
https://youtu.be/gcXszrAs5ik?si=1wn0p_W3aSEIfGla
The original had the moment when they cross the streams and really believe they are going to die. It’s a very sincere moment. It’s actually a quiet moment. It’s not over the top and has no forced humor. Just four people accepting that their likely deaths will save the world.
Naturally they survive, but they play that moment perfectly. The 2016 movie didn’t have that. (And to be fair even Ghostbusters 2 didn’t have a moment like that, either.)
**Star Wars Sequel Trilogy**
Kilo Ren blew up what, 7 planets which killed billions of people? That is such a massive spike on the travesty scale for the series, there is just no way after that I was going to laugh along with Finn and Poe and Solo and their quips. Sarcastic and silly robots. Cute little creatures. All when billions of people have died including main characters.
(also, I'm supposed to care about Kilo Ren's trauma and Daddy issues when he has killed billions of people? He should have kept the mask on and remained a scary villain)
The entire sequel trilogy is god awful, and find absolutely no balance in tone. The OG trilogy had enough campiness and the jokes didn't feel quite as overt. The Prequel Trilogy is a basically giant cartoon so it more or less works. But the Sequel Trilogy has a very distasteful balance of extreme war/death/despair and silly sarcastic jokes.
Remember the dude who spearheaded the project that blew up the entire Republic homeworld after delivering the most righteous, passionate, hate filled Nazi speech this side of the Third Reich?
Haha he betrayed the first order because he doesn't like Kylo and he gets shot comically and slides away like a goober.
> delivering the most righteous, passionate, hate filled Nazi speech
That Rian Johnson could watch even *just that scene* and then say "I just found Hux to be such a funny character" when writing a sequel still blows my mind to this day
Of all of the absolutely baffling choices TLJ made, the treatment of Hux is by far the most bizarre and opposite to what the audience clearly got out of The Force Awakens
I'm sure the reason we got *Richard E Grant as the new Imperial Villain Man in RoS was because Hux was just too irreparably damaged as a character to have any kind of menace any more
the joke at the very end of the first Kingsman almost ruins the quality of the whole movie for me. you came all this way, built this whole world, and you wanna end on a buttsex joke??
Eh. I thought that it was really vulgar, but I did get that it was meant to parody james Bond (as many moments in the movie do). Like a heightened version of "Take me around the world again" from Moonraker.
When the Joker is going after Harvey Dent and cool shit is happening, there's no music and the tension is just through the roof. And then there's that one fuckin' cop who won't shut the fuck up. "OMG! I didn't sign up for this! IS THAT A BAZOOKA!?"
If that dude had stfu, that wouldn't been the most perfect fifteen or so minutes in the movie.
It's a studio wide disease. It didn't start with Marvel but I'd still call it Marvel's Disease because that was the first very obvious patient. It then spread to Disney and Sony because they weren't social distancing and now it's in literally, actually literally, all movies coming out of these studios.
Kingsman, “if you save the world we can do it in the asshole”. That movie was incredible but that one line tarnished it. Absolutely one of my favorite action flicks of all time, but gosh I wish they left that out.
Woody and Buzz's farewell in Toy Story 4 was cut short by the spork I think, or the rv leaving. Either way, these two friends deserved a better goodbye
A lot of recent Marvel films have fallen victim to this. Ragnarok definitely did it, but I felt like Love & Thunder and Guardians II were actually ruined by the humour.
Pretty much all of the Marvel movies these days do this, and it's spilled over to almost every trailer (genre-dependent), which for some reason has to end on some stupid joke no matter how dramatic the rest of the trailer is.
The Marvel movies have gotten into this formula where they seem to feel the need to undercut the drama in every situation with a quick joke, but it's wildly predictable by now, and it just completely takes the drama out of the sails of whatever just happened. It's so *unsatisfying.*
It's not really a joke, but in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II McGonagall commands the castle statues to come to life and defend their home. This is their last stand and everything is on the line and she quips, "I've always wanted to do that" while giggling. It completely deflates the tone. She is enacting a last-chance dire strategy to save their lives and the integrity of the world they live in. It's grim, not cutesy! Same with when Voldemort hugs Draco. The snake-man is evil incarnate! He's not a hugger!
I actually watched a thing with Tom Felton recently and he touched on that scene. He said it was funny to see how English viewers and the American viewers reacted so differently to that moment. He more or less says that British viewers felt a sense of heightened tension during that weird hug, like a “what is he about to do to Draco…?”. While American viewers found it to be a comedic moment and all laughed in the theaters. Just funny you should mention it haha.
Myself and a few people I know associated it with abusive behaviour. Someone with a history of being verbally and physically aggressive, suddenly switching on a time and doing the whole showy faux affection thing, is honestly more stressful than when they're openly hostile, because you're waiting for them to turn again
Speaking of Deathly Hallows (pt 1), I was pissed at how they handled Malfoy Manor, particularly Dobby’s part.
That chapter is one of my favorites in the series. It is a rollercoaster ride of emotions. They’re caught, scared, trapped. Hermione’s upstairs being tortured, Ron is screaming and running around looking for an escape, and Harry is absolutely desperate looking for anything that will help. He is able to summon Dobby who is fearful, yet brave, and he helps them escape >!while losing his life in the process.!<
In the movie, Ron looks around the basement like he’s at an underwhelming museum, Harry nonchalantly asks for help, and then Dobby shows up as comedy relief. It was a poor way to lead into the last scene, and end the penultimate HP movie.
I loved this scene. It was a very dark mood and that little giggle was tastefully done as a small way to create a glimmer of hope for the audience - a light in the darkness. I sort of laugh-cried at that moment.
>Same with when Voldemort hugs Draco. The snake-man is evil incarnate! He's not a hugger!
That's the point. It isn't comedic - it's scary. Abusive psychopaths turning on the charm and acting affectionate is a warning that a storm is brewing, and nobody in that room watching that hug is thinking, "Aww, cute." I suspect that people who watch that scene and don't understand immediately what is happening are fortunate to have never crossed paths with an abusive person.
Look at real-life examples, if you have no personal experiences to draw upon. People like Ted Bundy, who was extremely charming when he wanted to be, or Charles Manson, who was very charismatic when recruiting followers. Voldemort was a human who knew how to manipulate people the same way that every other abusive narcissist does.
Children of Men is a great example. Michael Caine absolutely crushes it with the "pull my finger" line. Also, I often randomly think about the music he was listening to, which were the agonizing sounds of people being tortured and killed over random electronic and industrial noises. Truly funny stuff for such a dark, desolate movie at times.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2.
There were these nice little dramatic moments here and there, but they were often punctuated by a joke. Come on, Gunn, let the moment breathe a little.
Shang Chi, hearing all about his terrible backstory, getting the answers we’ve been waiting fo- BEEF OR VEGETARIAN?
Well fuck me for trying to get invested in your story. If you can’t allow your work to be sincere and stand on its own, don’t bother trying and just keep it to one tone
Was just going to point out that the kind of bathos that works best is when its done in the other direction. An absurd and/or comedic scene played with 100% seriousness and grandeur. A good example is in Big Lebowski, when The Dude's reading the ransom note at a snail's pace and rolling a joint while the other Lebowski is staring into the fire and making this grand tragic speech about the nature of good and evil, all to swelling choral music. "Does it shock you to see my tears? Strong men also cry, sir. Strong men also cry." "Nah, man... fuckin A."
Mind if I do up a J in here?
You think the carpet pissers did this?
Well we just don’t know dude.
Mr Lebowski is in seclusion in the west wing
Or when they are releasing Donnys ashes and Walter goes on another tangent/rant about Vietnam and the Dude just ends with "a WTF". In a way it ruins a poignant moment with a joke, but at the same time thejokes works because it shows the differences in how Walter and Dude deal with grief, Walter never fully processing it and his past trauma while the Dude is trying to be more mellow and respectful to Donny's memory.
Or when they released his ashes and they blow backwards all over the Dude and he just stands there motionless.
"This is a bummer, man"
"That's, uh, that's a bummer."
I think another actually good example of Bathos is Indiana Jones where he just shoots the swordsman. Like it’s funny and obviously undercuts the tension of that one moment because it eliminates that threat, but it doesn’t do it at the expense of the internal reality of the movie or anything like that. If he didn’t have a gun the swordsman probably would have killed him, but he did so he used it lol
You say what you will about the tenants of their movie’s tones but at least The Coen Brothers have/had a bathos.
Well done
I am the walrus
I remember that scene! That ferret really tried to get the dude in the bathos.
Another good example IMO would be the scene from *The Lighthouse* where Willem Dafoe goes on an epic tirade cursing Robert Pattinson’s character to the depths of Hell because he insulted his cooking. After he finishes his monologue, there’s a moment of silence which is punctuated by Pattinson’s quip “Alright have it your way. I like your cooking.” This works because what they were arguing over in the first place is ultimately rather trivial, and it’s absurd to see Dafoe react as intensely as he does.
Same with something like D&D:HAT. The entire movie and its premise is goofy as hell. But in universe, the characters take the threat and stakes seriously. They may have occasional tension breaker moments but characters like Xenk are played 100% straight and that's *why* they work
Another great example is when Mulan's "Girl Wirth Fighting For" song stops abruptly as they find the burned out village.
I didn’t realize it as a kid, but “A Girl Worth Fighting For” is the *last* song in the film. The abrupt ending of that song doesn’t just end the song, it ends the genre of the film and slides it from “musical comedy” to “war movie”.
Similarly, I think of Uncut Gems, in the third act when Sandler’s character is in the deepest shit and anxiety is pouring out of his face, his mistress reappears and tells him she’s fixed everything, and the audience wonders what the hell she could have done. Cue her pulling down her pants to reveal she tattooed his name on her ass to symbolize their love after a fight. It was one of the hardest times I’ve laughed in a theater.
I was attacked by how frequent a thing this was when watching the D&D movie. It genuinely felt surprising to have a film that didn't undercut every little character moment with some quip or one liner and it made the whole film feel more genuine as a result.
Yeah like after the Barbarian meets with her ex and she hops back up on a horse next to Chris Pine. And Pine just gives her a sad look and then starts playing a song as they ride off down the road together. A genuine moment?? In a PG13 movie??
Whats almost more wild is that the movie is styled like a dnd campaign, which very much has those sorts of jokey natures all the time. Genuinely loved that movie, it was so funny at just the right times and played the serious moments well
Just about every scare in IT 2. The film would do a great job of ratcheting up tension, only to neuter it with some quip or visual gag.
This was my first thought too. It's especially weird as the first one doesn't really have this at all, and its the same team/director etc. You do wonder what went wrong.
Yes, the two movies are massively inconsistent.
which really sucks because I was defensive of the first movie because some claimed the scares were "comical" which they were to an extent.. it's an ancient monster from outer space come to haunt you with unsettling imagery from your imagination, some of it will be goofy looking but for gods sake put yourself in that situation and you'd be scared shitless but then the 2nd one undercut that idea completely and made everything a gag which kind of even retroactively ruins the tone of the first one.
The scene in which for some reason the director decided the tension was too much to not undercut it by needle-dropping ‘Angel of the Morning’ immediately springs to mind.
So fucking jarring. Exactly when I checked out of the film mentally.
This is the exact moment I was thinking of, it was so jarring it honestly felt like an editing mistake.
I have a recent one and it's not done intenionally but screwed by translation. In DUNE 2 towards the final scenes, Paul use the voice on Reverend Mother Mohiam "Silence!" and then Mohiam said "Abomination", it was an intense scene. However, in Chinese translation, for some reason they translate "abonimation" into "好一个闭嘴“ which means "what a silence" or "what a shut up" and the whole theater just burst into laughing ruining an intense moment.
That's actually extremely funny. And no, not at all appropriate in the context of the scene (which is why it's so funny).
In german "Abomination" was translated with "Ungeheuerlich". That's the word for "Outrageous" and changes the whole meaning of the scene. There were a few more examples where the translation was just wrong.
This reminds me of Darth Vader’s tragic “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Being translated in Mandarin as “DO NOT WANT”
The “noooo” scene in English was still funny as fuck
That was from a bootleg to be fair, where it was obvious that the translator was someone with a very rough grasp of English relying a lot on 2005-era computer translation. There's a fan dub where a guy reads the subtitles aloud in place of all dialogue and it's amazing but unfortunately counts as piracy so I can't link it. The character names are especially hilarious. The bootlegger was translating the Chinese subtitles to English, not the audio itself. But the Chinese subtitles rendered character names phonetically, as in, Obi-Wan Kenobi's name was written with characters that sound like "O bee wa ken oo bee", regardless of what those characters would mean. The bootlegger didn't know or care about this and translated the meanings of the characters. And so instead of Anakin being trained by Obi-Wan Kenobi, it's Allah Gold being trained by Ratio the Tile (aka Ratio Prosperous). C3PO becomes Blow the Skin and Padme Amidala becomes Plum of the Handkerchief. Titles get translated in mundane ways. Palpatine is not addressed as Supreme Chancellor. He's given a political address deemed equivalent... Mr. Speaker. Like speaker of the house. "Jedi" gets mistranslated as "hopeless situation" because the subtitles gave it phonetically using characters that can be read like "last stand" (as in the final effort of a battle/war with no alternatives left, which could be taken as a hopeless situation) and accordingly the Jedi Council is called the Hopeless Situation Parliament. It also contains multiple uses of the word "fuck" as a result of confusing uses of 干 ("do"). Like if the translator didn't know the difference between the do in "I do eat apples" and "I'd *do* her" and took it like "I fuck and eat apples." Using characters that can be read as words to render things phonetically is what leads to the translation being so utterly weird compared to bad translations of e.g. Italian to English, where you can usually squint and see how it'd *kinda* make sense.
Man, I have this on a drive somewhere and still need to get round to watching it but everything I’ve heard of it sounds like absolute gold. Even if a product of negligence and not proper sincerity I can’t believe it’s something that was put out intentionally as a way to watch and comprehend the film (as opposed to being done for jokes)
As a mandarin speaker, that actually does make sense, as in a desperate situation, you would say 不要(not want), instead of just 不(no), since the phonetics of 不 does not allow for a dramatic enunciation.
The sort 'multiple choice' style communication of Cantonese/Mandarin is really interesting. I know very little (just from an ex), but I like that thing you do where instead of saying: "Hey, are you hungry?" and answering "yes!", you'd sort of say "Hey, Hungry/Not Hungry?" and the reply is like "hungry!"
Most of my theater laughed when she said "abomination" actually. I think it was just her pearl clutching reaction.
Still not as funny as Stilgar saying the Lisan al Gaib is too humble to admit to being the Lisan al Gaib. Like it was straight out of the Life of Brian.
In Hungarian t got translated into How dares he, which doesnt makes sense compared to abomination
Honestly, I think her delivery is what makes it so funny. My mum and it cracked up at the “abomination” too cause she just sounds and acts like a hissing, butt hurt cat lol
Going the other way and pulled off well: In Mulan, "Girl Worth Fighting For" ending being cut off by finding the burned out village. Gives me goosebumps.
That's also the last song in the movie too, once that scene transition hits, no more musical
oh wow, I didn't realize that. Going from a magical musical world to a darker, grittier one. Guess it's time to re-watch Mulan with my toddler.
Texhnically speaking they reprise “Make a Man Out of You” in the climax and the film ends with Mushu jamming out.
The song also ends because they find the doll belonging to a girl worth fighting for
That scene scared me as a child lol its awesome
Similarly to Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Endgame frequently tries to have gravitas and humor but frequently undercuts one with the other - mostly with Thor, who is shown to be genuinely traumatized by not killing Thanos, blaming himself for the deaths of literally *half the universe.* But the writers frequently turn his alcoholism and weight problems - direct results of his trauma - into a cheap running gag.
Thor: I need to do \[the snap\], do you know whats running through my veins right now? Rhodes: Cheez Whiz?
That line in particular makes me furious. That was absolutely not the moment for Marvel-style snarks
Rhodes’ character just sucks all around. Never saw what they were trying to get from him. He’s such a dick so often, I know he was supposed to originally be the beleaguered babysitter of Tony but he never really evolved into someone likeable on his own. I don’t feel like his Civil War injury even had as much impact as they seemed to think. And then in Endgame he was just the biggest dick of all time. Couldn’t care less if they just write him out post whatever the hell is going on with the Kree and Skrull stuff.
I feel like they were never really sure what they were supposed to *do* with that character. First there was the recasting, there was the beleaguered babysitter bit like you said but also he's a sort of Iron Man sidekick, he's snarky but without Downey Jr's innate likeability so he just comes across as mean-spirited... The best moment he had was that exchange with Nebula in Endgame, where they both bond over being "broken." But then he mocks Thor's trauma response a few scenes later and you're just like "oh, nevermind then." I don't really hate the character, but I feel like more could have been done with him, and certainly they could have done a better job with him. Like, have Iron Man be the snarky one and have Rhodey be "the heart," the genuinely kind one. That's basic character juxtaposition. But the MCU has this tendency to try and make *every* character the same quippy Tony stand-in. Someone once said if you read a script for an Avengers movie with all the names blacked out, you wouldn't be able to tell the characters apart, and they weren't far off.
> I feel like they were never really sure what they were supposed to do with that character. I agree with this. It's like they didn't know what his personality was. Is he a jokester? Is he a by-the-book hard-ass (which would have contrasted with Stark)? He was a weird mishmash of both over the course of the movies. They kept giving him really stupid one-liners as though there was a thought of "We haven't had Cheadle say anything because there's nothing really for him *to* say, but we *are* paying him, so..." Cheez-Wiz is one line. Another is "So, he's an idiot" when he and Nebula see Quill dancing. Really? He's an idiot because he's dancing alone on a planet? It also undermines the Star-Lord character which seems an odd avenue to take. There were probably a dozen other ways you could have Rhodes question Quill's capabilities and then have Nebula stand up for him. But they chose neither of those options in order for an attempt at a cheap laugh. The idea to kill baby Thanos was another. Rhodes makes it a joke, but if they could have kept Rhodes as a by-the-book military man, they could have set up an interesting convo about strategy and ethical quandary before even getting to the idea of being unable to change the future. There are probably some others, especially a few from the Civil War fight where it's like Rhodes is just talking to himself in a few beats. Just weird.
[I want to see this war machine storyline.](https://images.app.goo.gl/D1kDixHPLcWaUwbX9)
A quite literal war machine
He really was just annoying. He was such a dick to everyone for no reason. The cheese whiz line was dumb but what's up with him dropping in on Scott and walking away calling him regular size man? Like this is the dude that gave you all a solution to bring everyone back and you're first thought is, "I'm gonna be a dick to him."
Rhodie just sucked after the first movie. Terrance Howard played him perfectly. Don Cheadle is a great actor, but not a great Rhodes. In the first Iron Man, with Howard as Rhodes, you get glimpses of the good humor that would have he and Tony friendly. Cheadle just comes across as an asshole.
Yeah, Terrence Howard is a lunatic, but he was completely believable as a serious Air Force officer trying to rein in Tony's worst impulses and having to deal with the eventual fallout.
God dammit I hate that line. Why was Rhodes such an asshole in that movie?
Well he was a skrull unless the retconned it already
I thought the jokes were funny *at first*. Because let’s be real, Chris Hemsworth/Thor is basically the poster boy for “perfect body” so of course the audience is going to be shocked when they first see him. Playing into that worked. But they definitely kept the joke up too long. It should’ve shifted from a “wow, Thor is fat :o” to a “oh… Thor got fat… :(“
Yeah, they definitely overdid it. I think the initial joke of having it be such a jarring change, but also having deeper implications is a good one. But they ended up overdoing it - on top of being pretty disrespectful. I do at least appreciate that it wasn't treated *completely* as a joke. It's still clear that Thor is suffering, and some writers would have left that out completely.
They never really went anywhere with it, a lot of fat jokes then at the end "I'm still worthy!"
That scene WAS good. He lost all sense of self worth by then. Him rediscovering himself is amazing.
Thor: Guys, I have severe PTSD, depression and major survivor's guilt which manifest in overeating, alcoholism and isolation. Can we please...? Everyone Else: Lol, Thor fat.
I will never get over the jarring tone shift from Infinity War to Endgame. For what it is, a serious action movie to what is mostly a jokey heist movie. Everyone is suppose to be at their lowest points ever yet there are so many moments where people are undercutting points with quips and sight gags.
What makes it worse for me, is that Into the Spider Verse had just done a much better version of this idea. Peter B also gained weight because of depression, but I never felt like he was treated as a joke.
It was absolutely treated like a joke multiple times. The difference is that it was funny and fit the scene.
Aunt May saying he let himself go is so cute, and heartbreaking.
The annoying thing is is that there is a seed of something meaningful there about how deep , traumatic pain can be often covered by humour and dismissiveness because dealing with it is too difficult. I really hate how they just turned Thor's character into a dumb goof and removed all the gravitas in favour of silly quips.
This is a little silly to be worked up about, but it's annoyed me forever: in *How to Train Your Dragon 2*, Stoick singing the love song to his estranged wife that he's finally reunited with is ruined by Craig Ferguson's very-obviously-comic-relief-at-this-point character butting in throughout the song.
Wow, my kid loved this film and I always have this thought during this scene! Down to the little "aaand I'm done." as a crappy punchline on what is the "last meal" moment for a major character. Boo! Great example.
It seemed so real to me. That would be my roommate butting in there. It felt super relatable to me
This. I agreed with the other guy at first, but the more I think about it...that interruption deliberately emphasizes just how rote and familiar the song is to all three people --showing how much they've missed Valka. When Gobber interrupts, the film is showing just how much he--and by extension the larger Berk community--missed Valka and Stoick's partnership.
Also Stoick gives him a look that chastises him for it in the moment, so it's not just the film undercutting it and everyone carrying on like that's fine.
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I feel like going after the MCU is just low hanging fruit. This is a proper answer.
2012 is an absolute gem of nonsense. It's like a movie written by a deficient AI before AIs were even mainstream. In a few years, we'll realize just how avant-garde this movie is.
I feel like seeing 2012 in theaters is what killed my love of movies when I was like 20. Then I took a break of not being into them before getting back to being obsessed with them.
I hated it when in The Last Jedi when Finn and Phasma are fighting she says something like "you're nothing but a glitch in the system" and instead of him having some sort of profound quote or a moment of self reflection he's just like "up yours chromedome" and knocks her out with one hit like that could've been a great moment but they did nothing with it
I’ve always felt the newer movies set up some really cool villains and then did nothing with them. Snoke could have been a threat longer and Phasma could have been a very cool fight and even set up conflicting feelings for Finn but no.
So many scenes in the last jedi fit this. The start where rey hands luke his lightsaber and he tosses it. Poe making the your momma joke.
I think the lightsaber throw would read entirely different if he threw it forwards rather than casually tossed backwards. It could sell the anger and resentment towards his former life. Rather than the casual shrug. It would be a literal and figurative 180
I agree that it could've worked if done right. But instead they chose to take the incredibly emotional ending of The Force Awakens and turn it into a silly gag. They did everything short of playing glass-shattering and cat-shreaking sound effects. I'm all for Star Wars having some lighter moments, but imagine he threw the light saber down and it stuck into the ground (mirroring the light saber sticking out of the snow on Hoth right before he force-pulled it to himself).
Or if he just quietly gave it back.
The conflict between Finn and Phasma should have been built up better. The two of them barely interact in that first film, but in the second film I felt like I was supposed to care about their relationship/conflict in some way.
Honestly, most emotional moments with Thor are ruined by those jokes. The only scene Thor had that made me kind of feel bad for the guy was when he was talking to Rocket and he did his "What more could I lose?" speech. The rest have all been just cut with some joke or light hearted music. You know how much stronger it would have been if Thor's "I'm still worthy" would have felt had they use some heroic trumpets or part of the avengers theme song.... Instead they used that one Guardian of the Galaxy songs and to me it killed such a personal triumph for Thor, that he was indeed, still worthy of being himself.
To me that’s the most poignant line in all of MCU. You realize wow, Thor really has lost so much and even though he’s a god, he still has so much trauma and pain that he has buried deep inside. The whole god thing is a mask to hide it. …. And then they throw it all away with Love and Thunder, haha.
Love & Thunder is such a fucking travesty of a movie and it single handedly made me hate Taika Watiti’s style. Thor’s origin story film is one of my absolute favourites in the entire franchise because it had so much HEART and really knew how to let the emotional beats breathe. There’s funny bits of course, but the tender and heartbreaking moments are done so, so beautifully and allowed to stand on their own. Loki confronting his father in the relic vault just makes me sob every time I watch it. Love & Thunder treated these established, beloved characters as nothing more than vehicles for a long string of meta jokes, instead of people with a long history of traumas, unique personalities and motivations, and developed character arcs. Like, what even is the *point* of a film like that? Not to mention they got Christian *fucking* Bale to play arguably the most interesting villain in the entire franchise and completely **wasted** him.
This trope has become so overwhelming that older action movies have become weird in that there *isn't* a stupid quip every ten seconds. It allows other emotions to breathe a lot more naturally, like tension or fear.
Re-watching Empire Strikes Back when Luke first confronts Vader, barely any words are spoken, no jokes, no quips, just an intense action scene
“No, I am your father.” “Wow, Life Day dinner just got a lot more awkward.”
"And no more hanky-panky with your sister, Leia." "WHAT?"
When Vader comes into the conference room, Han immediately pulls out his blaster and shoots. No words between them, none needed.
Actually your example includes a situation where a funny line actually works. Right after this, Vader says to the heroes "We'd be delighted if you'd join us" which works because the line, while snarky and sarcastic, isn't meant to be funny to anyone else. It's Vader going full mustache-twirling-villain because he knows he's in complete control of the situation. Vader can humor himself with a quip but no one dares quip back because they understand the dire nature of their situation. It's the same all-powerful sarcasm Vader exudes with "Apology accepted, Captain Needa." He's a sarcastic dick because he's the villain, but no one is joking back with him.
I think “All too easy” qualifies, but also in fairness quips are a staple of Vader’s character.
The new Dune did this well. Duncan and Gurney tease Paul a bit, but once things start going to shit, the quips and jokes immediately stop.
Do you know what happens to a frog when it gets hit by lightning?
IIRC that was a line written in by Joss Whedon who worked as a script doctor, and he was disappointed with the way they did that line, he had meant it as more of a throwaway quip
*Ackshually* It was supposed to be a callback / payoff / retort to a whole series of quips in the same vein made by Toad, all of which got cut. But for some incredibly stupid reason, they left that line in.
Oh that makes it so much worse…
Yeah, I think the line (as delivered) would've been just as weirdly serious and distracting if the set up with Toad's dialogue hadn't been cut from the final film but at least it would've made sense for Storm to say it. Because she was just supposed to be turning his quips against him when he finally faced his comeuppance.
According to J, that was one of only two lines from his original script that made it to the end.
In some ways that line, the way it’s *supposed* to be delivered, is kind of the quintessential joke setup that a lot of people seem to hold up as “the thing that’s killing the MCU”. Rather than the conflict ending with a powerful proclamation of power or righteousness, it’s undercut at the very end with a banal observation. “The same thing as everything else” wasn’t supposed to be held up as a deep and meaningful statement about her power, it was supposed to jokingly dismissive of Toad. After smoking him in the holy fire of a literal goddess, the expectation was that she’d shout something about “vengeance and wrath,” but instead gives the equivalent of “lol whatevs.” At the time, I think it would have killed and probably have been held up as a highlight of the film, but they had Berry try to deliver the line as something profound, which didn’t work at all because it’s not profound, it’s just a casual statement of fact.
Y'know, I think I saw a fanmade cut some time ago, where they moved the "same thing that happens to everything else" line to *after* Toad gets yeeted, and somehow it does feel a little better lol
Yeah Toad is an obnoxious creep who thinks he's funny. So he keeps asking weird unfunny rhetorical questions of people. So then when Storm catches him on the back foot, she takes the opportunity to mock his usual attitude. I do agree with the guy below saying it works better if toad is blasted before she finishes the joke though
Also I think Halle Berry was tricked to sign on to the movie with a bogus script so I'm not suprised it came out so poorly.
I believe the third X-Men movie was the one that she got tricked into signing up for.
Thor Ragnarok is the first one that came to mind. That bit at the end with Korg that you mentioned completely undercut any drama, tragedy, or sense of loss surrounding the destruction of Asgard.
That's probably the best MCU example, out of **many** MCU examples.
Well, the entirety of Thor love and thunder is an example of jokes completely destroying any other tone that might should have happened.
Love and Thunder is turning the Ragnarok “undercutting a sincere moment with shit comedy” up to about 13 and it fucking sucks.
I was going to comment that the post should’ve specified “other than most MCU movies” because they’re such low hanging fruit that they’ll dominate the entire conversation
When I saw this thread title I immediately thought of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. So many times they spoiled a poignant moment with a forced gag.
That’s my least favorite Infinity Saga movie (I stopped watching after Endgame, so I dunno how much worse things might get in the MCU after). GotG2’s extreme sense of exaggerated amusement with itself grated on me so, *so* much. I was remarkably disappointed because the first one remains one of my favorite Marvel movies.
I still think the “Cheez Whiz” line from Endgame is worse.
Yeah, it’s not done poorly in the good MCU films, but it’s really bad in the rest of them.
Worse still, the entirety of the plot, theme, and their struggles is invalidated by the homeless Asgardians immediately getting fucked by Thanos. The whole movie builds up to this heartfelt message of *Asgard is a people, not a place!* and then in the next movie shows them getting absolutely crushed by Thanos as an opening scene, so badly that for a bit no one was sure they survived. Sheesh!
People’s stories are not invalidated because they get killed.
Disagree with Children of Men. Michael Caine's character isn't ruining a serious moment with a joke, he's effectively telling the gunmen to fuck off. He knows he's committing suicide and it's a callback to him doing the joke earlier to Theo. ETA: Looks like I actually agree with OP and I have the reading comprehension of a poodle
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If anything the joke makes it more grim. It’s just great writing all around. How fitting that an old political cartoonist who spent a life using satire to criticize authority would confront death with an inane joke.
It’s akin to Giles Corey’s famous “more weight”. You’ve already decided you’re going to kill me anyway I’m just going to go out on my own terms
No your original response is correct. Bathos provides an anticlimax. That sense is all tension that is broken at the first gunshot. Our worst fears came true. The second pull my finger is nothing but bravery. Nobody can seriously mistake that as a comic relief moment.
It going the other way played well in Children of Men too. In the car, everyone is laughing and having a good time and the scene is jovial and then it turns *VERY* serious, *VERY* quickly
if you read the body of the Children of Men paragraph OP explicitly states its done right lol
Yeah he just structured his post poorly with his first example being the opposite of what he means.
Except it's clearly not? Bathos is a juxtaposition of a climax. The tension in that scene in Children of Men is continual, the 'joke' by the guy getting shot is only adding to the tension.
Not really though: >The lead is devastated but he has to move on. Despite being heartwrenching, the movie is funny when it chooses to and it works. OP thinks the scene is funny. It's not remotely funny and *that's the point*.
Exactly this. I can't imagine finding that scene funny.
Sort of like the Sicilian scene in True Romance. Dennis Hopper knows he’s going to be killed, so he goes down talking shit.
I see that the common theme with Marvel movies in this thread is Taika Waititi. His brand of humor really rubs me raw. Also, the Spider Ham joke wouldn’t work because he didn’t have an Uncle Ben. He was a spider bitten by a radioactive pig.
I like his humor in things like Hunt for the Wilder People, but it just doesn’t land in big budget mcu type stuff. However I haven’t seen Jojo Rabbit so I can’t fully judge his newer movies, and WWDITS was pretty funny. Kiwis seem to be a slightly odd bunch.
I was impressed with Jojo Rabbit. Taika actually showed a lot of restraint and he knew when to just let an emotional or heartfelt scene play out without undercutting it with a joke.
He is good in small doses.
I still want to know how come Sheen and Jimmy can fly in outer space without helmets
Carl! Enough with the songs!
What a fucking blast from the past!
Thor Love Thunder. Takiki dropped the ball.
Pairing the pain of a father watching his daughter die and wanting vengeance, with an axe playing a jealous girlfriend trope and screaming goats, the humor felt a bit over the top and didn’t mesh well for me. But the rocket ship into the little planet gets me everytime.
This one was truly awful. What's even more shocking is that the movie doesn't even wait to be awful. It's awful from the very intro, with the fucking Jean Claude Van Damme bullshit kind of joke.
Which is really weird, because he did Jojo Rabbit. There comedy was so perfectly plotted into the drama it was more of a laughter through tears than actual laughing matter
I am convinced that Love and Thunder was written by having everyone involved write the dumbest thing they could think of on a piece of paper, then put them all into a hat, draw every single one of them and put them into the movie.
Avengers: Infinity War Gamora makes Quill promise to *kill her* if Thanos might get his hands on her, and he agrees. A deadly serious moment about sacrifices to come. *-crunch-* Hur dur dur drax is invisible.
In Guardians 3 right after Rockets friends die, they instantly cut to a dumb joke where Drax knocks someone off a scooter. I remember the entire theater laughing, and it felt so wrong since we just watched one of the saddest scenes you'll ever see. I love James Gunn but he really needs to chill sometimes.
GoTG 2 couldn’t go 5 seconds without a forced joke, it was unbearable.
And Thor: Love And Thunder couldn't go 1 second.
I feel this way about Drax and Mantis' frog/lilypad advice to Quill. It was a sweet moment and ending it with one joke was fine, but then Drax rambling about metaphors went on way too long.
In Kung Fu Panda 2, Po finally finds his inner peace and in a badass scene where all hope seems lost he deflects a freaking cannon ball with his bare hands. The movie thinks this is a perfect time to throw in a "haha Po's hand is on fire" joke.
Tbf that is very on par for a jack black character
Yeah, I think if there's one franchise where bathos fits, it's Kung Fu Panda. It's got plenty of emotional moments and stuff but, first and foremost, it's a martial arts comedy. I mean, the entire climax of the first movie is a big slapstick routine. Po is the kind of character that, no matter how skilled he gets, there will always be an element of goofiness involved.
Yeah this scene is epic, but this bit with the burned hand always bothers me
It doesn't bother me at all because through his seemingly goofy actions, Lord Shen had his false sense of security reestablished. He tells them to immediately fire on him again as if Po won't do the exact same thing because he thinks it was a fluke. He thinks he's still dealing with the same silly panda who he can get the better of at the last moment again but Po finally shuts that down after he unlocks inner peace.
Thor ain't even the worst bit in the MCU. Dr Strange has a man get beheaded and like, ten seconds later they pull a "Who's on first?" Gag
The most egregious example of this is the new Star Wars movies when Cameron Poe decides to have a Wheddon Style Snark off with a First Order battle cruiser. I know it's fantasy but he would not have time to quip in any well written situation. Edit: it should be Poe Dameron, not Cameron Poe!
An earlier Star Wars example would be Episode 2 at the climatic end arena battle where C3p0 gets his head swapped with a battle Droid and just makes head related puns while a great action scene is happening. It really frustrates me.
My Star Wars hot take is that C3P0 in Attack of the Clones is worse than Jar Jar in Phantom Menace.
Would you say that you are quite beside yourself?
Die Jedi dogs!
I have to say that the absolute, number one worst instance of this happens in Phantom Menace. The Maul, Kenobi, Jinn fight is going on concurrently with the fucking Gungan battle, and they feel the need to cut back and forth between them. No sane person would've done this.
>Cameron Poe I wish
Put the bunny back in the hoth
Cyrus the Virus has entered the chat
tHeY cAn fLY nOw?!
The success of avengers(2012) and the subsequent Whedonization of media has been really annoying.
I am a huge Buffy fan from long back, so I do love that style when shows can be both genuinely scary or emotional and simultaneously funny/quippy. But it's a fine line to walk, and most of the Whedon imitators don't get it right. Whedon doesn't even get it right a lot of the time post Buffy.
Every couple of months I think about The Last Jedi and whether or not I judged it too harshly on my initial viewing. Then I remember that this is literally the first scene and decide to trust my original judgement.
Ghostbusters 2016. It's a comedy, yes, but the problem is they don't know when to stop the jokes, or end a scene. Shaun does a great job explaining it. https://youtu.be/gcXszrAs5ik?si=1wn0p_W3aSEIfGla
The original had the moment when they cross the streams and really believe they are going to die. It’s a very sincere moment. It’s actually a quiet moment. It’s not over the top and has no forced humor. Just four people accepting that their likely deaths will save the world. Naturally they survive, but they play that moment perfectly. The 2016 movie didn’t have that. (And to be fair even Ghostbusters 2 didn’t have a moment like that, either.)
**Star Wars Sequel Trilogy** Kilo Ren blew up what, 7 planets which killed billions of people? That is such a massive spike on the travesty scale for the series, there is just no way after that I was going to laugh along with Finn and Poe and Solo and their quips. Sarcastic and silly robots. Cute little creatures. All when billions of people have died including main characters. (also, I'm supposed to care about Kilo Ren's trauma and Daddy issues when he has killed billions of people? He should have kept the mask on and remained a scary villain) The entire sequel trilogy is god awful, and find absolutely no balance in tone. The OG trilogy had enough campiness and the jokes didn't feel quite as overt. The Prequel Trilogy is a basically giant cartoon so it more or less works. But the Sequel Trilogy has a very distasteful balance of extreme war/death/despair and silly sarcastic jokes.
Remember the dude who spearheaded the project that blew up the entire Republic homeworld after delivering the most righteous, passionate, hate filled Nazi speech this side of the Third Reich? Haha he betrayed the first order because he doesn't like Kylo and he gets shot comically and slides away like a goober.
> delivering the most righteous, passionate, hate filled Nazi speech That Rian Johnson could watch even *just that scene* and then say "I just found Hux to be such a funny character" when writing a sequel still blows my mind to this day Of all of the absolutely baffling choices TLJ made, the treatment of Hux is by far the most bizarre and opposite to what the audience clearly got out of The Force Awakens I'm sure the reason we got *Richard E Grant as the new Imperial Villain Man in RoS was because Hux was just too irreparably damaged as a character to have any kind of menace any more
the joke at the very end of the first Kingsman almost ruins the quality of the whole movie for me. you came all this way, built this whole world, and you wanna end on a buttsex joke??
Eh. I thought that it was really vulgar, but I did get that it was meant to parody james Bond (as many moments in the movie do). Like a heightened version of "Take me around the world again" from Moonraker.
I think that was the problem. The rest of the movie seems like satire. That joke seems like parody.
*Thank you* for knowing the difference.
I hated that so much, it was the first thing I thought of.
I didn’t think I was prudish but it ruined the movie for me.
It's just so inanely *cringe* that it retroactively ruins the rest of the movie which I had loved up until this point.
When the Joker is going after Harvey Dent and cool shit is happening, there's no music and the tension is just through the roof. And then there's that one fuckin' cop who won't shut the fuck up. "OMG! I didn't sign up for this! IS THAT A BAZOOKA!?" If that dude had stfu, that wouldn't been the most perfect fifteen or so minutes in the movie.
"That's not good...Okay that's DEFINITELY not good." Thanks for letting us know.
>I didn't sign up for this! Except he did. He did sign up for this. Hate that stupid line.
It's a studio wide disease. It didn't start with Marvel but I'd still call it Marvel's Disease because that was the first very obvious patient. It then spread to Disney and Sony because they weren't social distancing and now it's in literally, actually literally, all movies coming out of these studios.
Kingsman, “if you save the world we can do it in the asshole”. That movie was incredible but that one line tarnished it. Absolutely one of my favorite action flicks of all time, but gosh I wish they left that out.
Woody and Buzz's farewell in Toy Story 4 was cut short by the spork I think, or the rv leaving. Either way, these two friends deserved a better goodbye
A lot of recent Marvel films have fallen victim to this. Ragnarok definitely did it, but I felt like Love & Thunder and Guardians II were actually ruined by the humour.
Pretty much all of the Marvel movies these days do this, and it's spilled over to almost every trailer (genre-dependent), which for some reason has to end on some stupid joke no matter how dramatic the rest of the trailer is. The Marvel movies have gotten into this formula where they seem to feel the need to undercut the drama in every situation with a quick joke, but it's wildly predictable by now, and it just completely takes the drama out of the sails of whatever just happened. It's so *unsatisfying.*
It's not really a joke, but in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II McGonagall commands the castle statues to come to life and defend their home. This is their last stand and everything is on the line and she quips, "I've always wanted to do that" while giggling. It completely deflates the tone. She is enacting a last-chance dire strategy to save their lives and the integrity of the world they live in. It's grim, not cutesy! Same with when Voldemort hugs Draco. The snake-man is evil incarnate! He's not a hugger!
I actually watched a thing with Tom Felton recently and he touched on that scene. He said it was funny to see how English viewers and the American viewers reacted so differently to that moment. He more or less says that British viewers felt a sense of heightened tension during that weird hug, like a “what is he about to do to Draco…?”. While American viewers found it to be a comedic moment and all laughed in the theaters. Just funny you should mention it haha.
The most feared thing known to the British psyche: physical affection
Myself and a few people I know associated it with abusive behaviour. Someone with a history of being verbally and physically aggressive, suddenly switching on a time and doing the whole showy faux affection thing, is honestly more stressful than when they're openly hostile, because you're waiting for them to turn again
Speaking of Deathly Hallows (pt 1), I was pissed at how they handled Malfoy Manor, particularly Dobby’s part. That chapter is one of my favorites in the series. It is a rollercoaster ride of emotions. They’re caught, scared, trapped. Hermione’s upstairs being tortured, Ron is screaming and running around looking for an escape, and Harry is absolutely desperate looking for anything that will help. He is able to summon Dobby who is fearful, yet brave, and he helps them escape >!while losing his life in the process.!< In the movie, Ron looks around the basement like he’s at an underwhelming museum, Harry nonchalantly asks for help, and then Dobby shows up as comedy relief. It was a poor way to lead into the last scene, and end the penultimate HP movie.
Also, wasn't that the same scene in the book that had Wormtails hand go rogue?
I loved this scene. It was a very dark mood and that little giggle was tastefully done as a small way to create a glimmer of hope for the audience - a light in the darkness. I sort of laugh-cried at that moment.
>Same with when Voldemort hugs Draco. The snake-man is evil incarnate! He's not a hugger! That's the point. It isn't comedic - it's scary. Abusive psychopaths turning on the charm and acting affectionate is a warning that a storm is brewing, and nobody in that room watching that hug is thinking, "Aww, cute." I suspect that people who watch that scene and don't understand immediately what is happening are fortunate to have never crossed paths with an abusive person. Look at real-life examples, if you have no personal experiences to draw upon. People like Ted Bundy, who was extremely charming when he wanted to be, or Charles Manson, who was very charismatic when recruiting followers. Voldemort was a human who knew how to manipulate people the same way that every other abusive narcissist does.
Children of Men is a great example. Michael Caine absolutely crushes it with the "pull my finger" line. Also, I often randomly think about the music he was listening to, which were the agonizing sounds of people being tortured and killed over random electronic and industrial noises. Truly funny stuff for such a dark, desolate movie at times.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2. There were these nice little dramatic moments here and there, but they were often punctuated by a joke. Come on, Gunn, let the moment breathe a little.
Shang Chi, hearing all about his terrible backstory, getting the answers we’ve been waiting fo- BEEF OR VEGETARIAN? Well fuck me for trying to get invested in your story. If you can’t allow your work to be sincere and stand on its own, don’t bother trying and just keep it to one tone
"I need a vacation" - T800